Oh it definitely beats Crysis if you are talking about hyperrealism ... there is no other engine around that can beat Unreal when it comes to hyperrealisn. Now if on the other hand you are going for photorealism and you are not talking about vehicles, interiors of buildings, large ships, huts, all the little things that bring a frame to life then yeah Crysis has no equal. But lets be honest that is just the jungle and the water and maybe the models (although for realism the Source HL2 models are actually more life like especially in HL2:EP2) that Crysis excels at.
Vehicles are crappy ... there are many games that have better looking vehicles ... Halo 3 has much better looking vehicles than Crysis, CoD4, UT3, Gears all have better looking vehicles.
And the interiors are really crappy ... like in the trailers .. man look compare that with the interiors in Gears of War ... there is none ... the furniture in Gears looks much more real and solid, the scattered papers, the stuff like Pianos, etc. all this blows Crysis away. And the buildings themselves ... once again UT3, Mass Effect, Gears, and Bioshock and R6V even all have better buildings.
So Crysis has more photo realistic trees and foliage and water (maybe on this ... I am not convinced ... the water in Bioshock was amazing) okay fine ... but overall when you consider EVERYTHING Gears of War beats it hands down and UT3 is not far behind. I am surprised I even have to say this on a Unreal site ... Crysis is meh? It is boring compared to Gears and does not run nearly as smoothly at max settings as Gears does on Max settings (especially on the 360) and also Crysis doesn't really add anything new ... not like Gears with the Roadie run, Active reload, a better cinematic experience, advanced cover system. So if I had to choose I would take Gears and UT3 over Crysis anyday of the week.